Understanding Power in Digital Platform Ecosystems

Digital platform ecosystems play an important role in today`s society. They are an important research topic in the disciplines of economics, computer science, and information systems. Digital platform ecosystems bring together at least one supply side and one demand side in a market through digital technology for example, Apple`s platform ecosystem brings together developers of apps for smartphones and users of smartphones. Information systems research aims to explain how value is created in digital platform ecosystems. An important mechanism is generativity the ability of the ecosystem to foster innovation through external actors. These actors are also called complementors. Many digital platform ecosystems are owned and run by dominant companies that control the ecosystem, such as Google, Apple, and Amazon. These companies can implement structures and rules that increase generativity, but also allow them to claim a significant share of the value that is created in the ecosystem. Because digital platforms are different, and each platform ecosystem is made up of many different actors, there are different power structures across digital platform ecosystems. There are power asymmetries in these structures, which means that some actors in platform ecosystems are more powerful than others. Current research does not adequately explain the drivers of this distribution of power in digital platform ecosystems and their effects on generativity. In particular, specific indicators of power remain unclear, for example with regard to the power advantage of platform owner companies in their ecosystem. This research project investigates what constitutes power in digital platform ecosystems, how the power advantage of a platform owner affects the generativity of the ecosystem, and how platform owners and complementors shape the distribution of power in the ecosystem. We investigate the distribution of power in multiple digital platform ecosystems and identify mechanisms underlying different distributions of power. In addition, we analyze the influence of the EU legislative initiative Digital Markets Act (DMA) on power relations in digital platform ecosystems. With the expected results, we contribute to the information systems research on digital platform ecosystems by (1) identifying and testing indicators of power in platform ecosystems, (2) conceptually linking the distribution of power in digital platform ecosystems to generativity, and (3) taking into account the role of public discourse in which platform owners and complementors engage to influence the distribution of power in their ecosystems.